res are known through Italy."

"Ay. Beauty is a curse to most of ye. Well, thou mayst mask thine eyes;
no more."

On this concession she seized his hand, and was about to kiss it; but he
snatched it rudely from her.

"What would ye do? That hand handled the eucharist but an hour agone: is
it fit for such as thou to touch it?"

"Ah, no. But oh, go not without giving your penitent daughter your
blessing."

"Time enow to ask it when you come back from Loretto."

Thus that marvellous occurrence by Tiber's banks left its mark on all
the actors, as prodigies are said to do. The assassin, softened by
saving the life he was paid to take, turned from the stiletto to the
porter's knot. The princess went barefoot to Loretto, weeping her crime
and washing the feet of base-born men.

And Gerard, carried from the Tiber into that convent a suicide, now
passed for a young saint within its walls.

Loving but experienced eyes were on him.

Upon a shorter probation than usual he was admitted to priest's orders.

And soon after took the monastic vows, and became a friar of St.
Dominic.

Dying to the world, the monk parted with the very name by which he had
lived in it, and so broke the last link of association with earthly
feelings.

Here Gerard ended, and Brother Clement began.

CHAPTER LXXI

"As is the race of leaves so is that of men." And a great man budded
unnoticed in a tailor's house at Rotterdam this year, and a large man
dropped to earth with great eclat.

Philip, Duke of Burgundy, Earl of Holland, etc., etc., lay sick at
Bruges. Now paupers got sick and got well as Nature pleased; but woe
betided the rich in an age when, for one Mr. Malady killed three fell by
Dr. Remedy.

The Duke's complaint, nameless then, is now diphtheria. It is, and was,
a very weakening malady, and the Duke was old; so altogether Dr. Remedy
bled him.

The Duke turned very cold: wonderful!

Then Dr. Remedy had recourse to the arcana of science.

"Ho! This is grave. Flay me an ape incontinent, and clap him to the
Duke's breast!"

Officers of state ran septemvious, seeking an ape, to counteract the
bloodthirsty tomfoolery of the human species.

Perdition! The duke was out of apes. There were buffaloes, lizards,
Turks, leopards; any unreasonable beast but the right one.

"Why, there used to be an ape about," said one. "If I stand here I saw
him."

So there used; but the mastiff had mangled the sprightly creature for
steal